Gallery makeover project : Fractals.As I've mentioned in my last this week in my MC, you may have seen that actually there's a huge project around gallery makeover.Fractal could be impact and could change now ! It's time for you to take out of your head some awesome ideas !

The current definitions for Raw Fractals and Fractal Manipulations overlap when multiple fractals are combined. Common practice seems to be that if the layering is done within a single fractal program (like Ultra Fractal), it is a Raw Fractal, but if the layering is done with a photo editor, it is considered "post-work" so becomes a Fractal Manipulation. I don't see why where the layering is done should make a difference. The first deviation I uploaded was made by combining a number of Apophysis fractals in a photo editor, which would make it a Fractal Manipulation. But if some future version of Apophysis supports layers, I could make the same piece of art entirely within that fractal program, making it a Raw Fractal. The distinction seems meaningless.

Indeed, when browsing DeviantArt I always stop at the Fractal Art category; I never browse the subcategories. Perhaps some people find them useful, but I don't. I would be more inclined to have categories "Pure Fractals" and "Fractal Based Art" to contain works that contain only fractal elements and those that combine fractal and non-fractal elements.

There is also an overlap between Fractal Art->Raw Fractals and Fractal Resources->Parameters. I often include parameters just in case anyone is interested in seeing how I did something, but I would still put it in the Fractal Art category; the parameters are just a side benefit. I would only put something in Fractal Resources if I intended it to be a resource (for example, an example of a particular technique, or a (hopefully) useful texture). I hope the descriptions of these categories would accommodate the intent of the work.

I think the current categories are fine as they are and should stay the same, except:

- I do agree that parameter packs needs to simply be Parameters.- Fractal Manipulations could be divided between: 1. RAW fractal Manipulations (for those where outside elements are all brought into UF itself as part of the overall work that is finally rendered as one image) 2. Other Fractal Manipulations (for images where fractals have had other elements added to them in another editing program.

(I wouldn't be too bothered about that personally, but I know some people feel strongly that if they have brought everything into their fractal program and made a single overall render, this is a little more technical to say the least, than taking your fractal into another editing program and adding tubes, or whatever to the image there.)

Looking at the suggestions recap:

* whether a fractal is 2 or 3 dimensional is somewhat open to speculation. Some people say that Ultra-Fractal is a 3 dimensional fractal program, but I never view it that way. Why would we need to add these sub-categories I wonder...

* Nooooo don't remove the animation category - unless people aren't going to do animations any more! I do think they should stay separate because of their very nature.

Hiyas! Sooo I was thinking as someone who occasionally submits fractal resources.. What about adding the Category from Resources & Stock > Stock Images > Fractals to the actual Resources & Stock > Fractal Resources categories? It threw me off for a minute when I submitted my first fractal as stock.

On a side note on fractals: If anyone has any tutorials for beginners (as in the "fractals for dummies" style) or even advanced ones I'd love to know. I've been wanting to do a feature on fractal tutorials. I have a lot of members that want to learn about them, but they get really confused.

Note : the 'digitalart/fractals/animations/' gallery is in conflict with 'film/animation/3d/fractal/' (which has no equivalent in 2d except maybe film/animation/2d/abstract...)So it would be nice to clean.

I'd say the Animation gallery shouldn't be removed! If the animation gallery will be removed, where shall we submit our animations to? Raw Fractals? Fractal Manipulations? I don't think they'd fit in neither of them.

Another category to discuss about is the Application Reference/Apophysis gallery. But I don't think I can say a word about that, since I have no clue what it is about. But it has a total of 33 deviations, among which most of them are miscats or can fit perfectly in other categories, IMHO.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind keeping things the way they are.I do note, however, that it tends to be difficult to decide where to draw the line between fractal manipulation and photo manipulation.

For example, I cannot believe this is a raw fractal:[link]but it is labelled as such because they probably didn't actually change the fractals within the scene, even if they moved them around or rotated them.

Is this a fractal manipulation? Obviously, it's got a painted person in it, so it incorporates non-fractal elements, which would thus immediately disqualify it from groups such as Fractal Dreams (who, though purists, accept fractal manipulations).I myself still consider it somewhat fractal art, but I would rather say it is a digital painting that incorporates fractals, rather than a fractal work in and of itself (unless you, in an amazing internet discovery, find some program that allows you to put images within your fractal works). The same can be said for my Oceanic Fractals ([link]), which incorporates fractals as "textures" but is primarily 3D models and image manipulation.

I feel I just have to correct a couple of misconceptions here as you do not seem very familiar with what the Ultra Fractal program is capable of.

Firstly, =raysheaf's maritime work is, without question, 100% raw fractal. It will have been created with numerous layers within the program (and from there it would have been rendered in one fell swoop) and I have no reason to think the result was constructed or otherwise assembled/manipulated in a postwork stage. Purists may question whether a multi-layer image can really be a "raw" fractal but that's another matter.

Secondly, no amazing discovery is required!... Ultra Fractal does, in fact, allow images to be put within fractal works both as a single item (e.g a background or single element within the scene) or as an iterating fractal trap shape (repeating, spiralling smaller and smaller etc.). I use this import feature a lot as part of my normal creative toolbox. The effect can range from subtle e.g. some of the texture on this: [link] to quite obvious, repeating photo elements e.g. [link].

Your third example is just about acceptable where it is, I think, but I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of it. If it were my work I would have put it somewhere else, probably in a photomanip category, as the photographic element is the most prominent aspect in my view.

I wouldn't like to see any more categories as I think this will just add confusion rather than helping. I think we have it just about right already with raw, manipulations and animations. There will always be people who overstep the mark or who get it wrong. And there will be people who think applying a so-called fractalising filter to a photo of a domestic cat somehow makes it a fractal (one of my pet peeves), but on the whole I think the present arrangement works pretty well and I do still broadly favour the concept of letting the artist decide where to put their work.

Correct, I'm not familiar with Ultra Fractal (other than the styles of fractals it usually outputs) because it's a for-pay program.

You're probably right about multiple categories adding more confusing. This should probably just be a group-choice thing then, huh? (At the very least that way we wouldn't have to re-learn what goes in all of the categories.)

(As an aside comment: as a purist, I wouldn't considering layering and adding imagery authentic fractals, since that's just like combining a fractal program with Photoshop.)

I know you're waiting for this... so.... What about a new sub-category "I can't read" for all the people submitting animations, ponies and photography in the fractal category ? Ok this should also appear in other galleries of DA

Having already said my chief concern (parameter filetypes), here's how I feel about the other issues being discussed here:

-I think the Fractal Animations category should be kept. If we didn't have it, where would a gif like this go? [link] If we try to fold things like that into the "raw fractals" gallery by allowing gifs there, it is possible that the miscat problem will simply be transplanted from the animations gallery into the "raw fractals" category as well. I'm hoping that some better organization in the other animation/film galleries will help with the miscats, but until then, images like the one I linked still need a place they can be submitted in the fractal gallery.-I am against splitting 2d and 3d, because I believe it has the same problems as splitting into program-based folders when it comes to "dividing the community." A long time ago someone suggested splitting into "Escape-time fractals" (like UF) and "IFS fractals" (like Apo) and even though they weren't TECHNICALLY program-based categories, it was basically the same. Splitting into 2d and 3d, while not TECHNICALLY a program-based category, is still really similar. Honestly, I know I myself would be tempted to only browse the 2d gallery, thus shutting out all the 3d. I don't think it would be a good thing to have a bunch of people habitually looking at only one of the two categories and completely ignoring the other. :/-I fully support renaming the Parameter Packs gallery and adding things like lightmaps and textures to the resources gallery.

I am also unhappy with the proposed eliminaton of the animations category on the gounds of a quantitative analysis. In this case, quality and uniqueness should be considered and not mixed with other categories.

I miss having our own top-level gallery, as it simplified things in my opinion. Also, despite it being relatively small, I think that we should bring back the "Traditional media fractals", or whatever it was called, especially keeping in mind 3D-Printed fractals, which I've found in several deviants' galleries. Perhaps it could be "Non-Digital Media Fractals" or something like that. I'm not a terribly big fan of separating 2d and 3d fractals, as it overcomplicates things, and I feel that having them combined works perfectly fine.

So we had this "top-level" cat for few months before the staff decided to going back on this choice.First because most (actually on dA maybe 99,8%) of the fractals are digitally made...So it going perfectly under digital art. Also when we was a "Top-level" cat we was one of the most spam cat as it was even more easy to find this really missunderstood are when everything could be post ...

For the 3D print fractal, IMO it's more like a artisan craft as sculpture is even if it's make with a CAD ...But that need to be discuss with some other CV.

Ok, I see where you're coming from with the top-level part, but as far as 3D printed stuff goes, when I see 3D printed metal stuff IRL, it tends to be categorized as metalwork, even if all the artist did was mode it in a CAD program. The same for other media, so if this is true, then why shouldn't 3D printed fractal art go with fractals? Also, 3D printed was just an example. I've seen other sorts of 3D fractal art as well.

Maybe... It all depends how you think about it... When you 3d-print something, it's no longer bytes, but plastic or metal or whatever, though I guess this argument could apply to printed out art as well. However, I think of the 3d printing of a fractal as its realization in reality...

[...] I won't accept suggestion like : "Please give us real sub-category in each category ! Like a Ultra Fractal folder, an Apophysis folder and a Mandelbulb folder"I support that simply because it's impossible to keep those kind of sub-categories up to date...Imagine if each time a software is create, you must re-structure each subcat, move all the "misscat" deviations etc...Also the main aim of this project is to "simplify" our categories to make them even more efficient ! So we're actually deleting and merging many of them. (don't worry actually fractals are not impact) [...]

I think 2D and 3D sub categories are a good idea, I was going to suggest that as well.

I also support further discussion on how to treat fractals with parameters provided. Having a folder for fractals with parameters under Fractal Art (and not resources either) may make those easier to find for those looking for some params to work off of. I know many people still want to submit their fractals with parameters under fractal art and not fractal resources for better exposure, and I think providing a venue for that would please both the parameter providers and those who seek them out. So that would be 3 (or 4 with animation) folders under Fractal Art; Raw Fractals, Fractal Manipulations, (Fractal Animations?), and Fractals with Parameters.

I agree with your point, but there's something to work on ...Actually if you provide parameters with a fractal those parameters are resources? but you also providing a fractal ?So actually the problem here is that it would be in 2 different category.IMO when you provide resources such as parameters it should be cat in Resources not fractal art...

It is a resource, but you know the type that I'm talking about right? Some challenges require people to include the parameters, a lot of 3D fractal artists also share the params to their art out of courtesy and out of habit. The difference between those and the resource parameters is that they were designed as artwork to begin with, and the parameters are a bonus. I think they belong in the art galleries, but having a separate category in there would help those who want to find them, that's all.

Hmm... I think what we have right now is pretty good. It's hard to get simpler then what we have. My main question would be the parameters in the "Stock and Resources" section. I habitually stick the parameters in my comments section, but I don't stick the fractal itself in the stock section because it's not really stock. I guess my question is, what makes a raw fractal with params a fractal instead of a stock? I'm thinking it's just the artist's preference, but I'm wondering if we should have some clarity on that.

What makes this doubly hard is that the fractal community doesn't have a hard line between stock and parameters... if you stick the parameters in, that pretty much makes it stock.

Really good remark.Actually this there's a difference simply because it's not in the Stock image category.There's stock images which you will be able to find here : [link]And the RESOURCES which you can find here : [link]

I usually subscribe to the idea of " If it isn't broke don't try to fix it." However, I do agree with you that the Parameters Pack folder should be more generic thus allowing for singluar parameters to have a place in our world. Keep up the great work Damien.

I usually subscribe to the idea of " If it isn't broke don't try to fix it." don't worry you're not the only one Actually it's pretty normal BUT if you don't try to change you will never improve, create or innovate ... Thanks for this input anyway

honestly, I think things are pretty good as they are, although I tend to agree on changing "Parameter Packs" to just "Parameters"

I think making sub-categories for each fractal program is too much... would be as bad as changing the 3D software categories in the same way... imagine having to post Bryce in Bryce, Daz in Daz, Blender in Blender, 3DsMax in 3DsMax and so on, and then what if you're using two or more of those programs? It ends up making it MORE complex, and the same goes for fractals... what do you do if you make a Mandelbulb with a BG created in Apo? Where does that go?

The only complaint I have ever had is that quite often the fractal animations category refuses to talke my work saying it's the wrong format, when it is not wrong... I'll try to post an animated GIF or PNG and it will say I can't post that to animations...

But the category structure seems good to me, and if it is changed in any way it should be made simpler, not more complex... just my two cents.